SZA, performs at the Global Citizen Festival in Accra, on Sept. 24, 2022.NIPAH DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images
Music made news this year – not always in positive ways.
“We need to do better and we will,” a contrite Live Nation Entertainment president and chief financial officer Joe Berchtold told a U.S. Senate hearing in January. Live Nation Entertainment owns Ticketmaster, the company that was grilled by lawmakers for inflated ticket prices and a spectacular breakdown during a sale of Taylor Swift tickets in 2022.
Thankfully, the first legs of Swift’s blockbuster Eras Tour were successful. Other tours weren’t so lucky: Illnesses and injuries postponed concerts by Madonna, Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen.
Most discouraging trend? AI-generated songs and facsimiles of artists’ voices. The fake Weeknd-Drake duet Heart on My Sleeve went viral in April and was later submitted for Grammy consideration.
The music world lost legends in 2023, including Canadians Gordon Lightfoot, Robbie Robertson and Ian Tyson. Obituaries were also written for Jeff Beck, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Jane Birkin, Carla Bley, Jimmy Buffett, David Crosby, Astrud Gilberto, Rudolph Isley, David Lindley, Shane MacGowan, Sinéad O’Connor, Sixto Rodriguez, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tina Turner and André Watts.
Other prominent Canadian musicians and industry leaders who died included Guess Who co-founder Chad Allan, Mahogony Rush drummer Jimmy Ayoub, concert promoter Rob Bennett, April Wine frontman Myles Goodwyn, Cape Breton songsmith Bruce Guthro, engineer/producer Peter Moore, reggae artist Bernie Pitters, disc jockey pioneer Red Robinson and Les Cowboys Fringants singer Karl Tremblay.
Another legend, Buffy Sainte-Marie, had her claim of Indigeneity questioned by a bombshell CBC News investigation. The 82-year-old folk singer refutes the allegations.
There was good news, of course. At the 2023 Grammy Awards, women made history. Four trophies earned by Beyoncé for her album Renaissance made the singer the winningest artist in Grammy history. All told, women won in more than 30 categories. And there is more to come: Female artists dominated the 2024 nominations announced in November.
The Recording Academy has its favourite albums, as do you and I. My top 21, in no specific order: Art Bergmann’s Shadow Walk, Begonia’s Powder Blue, Bruce Cockburn’s O Sun O Moon, Cat Power’s Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, Charlotte Cardin’s 99 Nights, Elisapie’s Inuktitut, Feist’s Multitudes, Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die (World War), Jamila Woods’s Water Made Us, Jenn Grant’s Champagne Problems, John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy: Evenings at the Village Gate, Margo Price’s Strays, Meshell Ndegeocello’s The Omnichord Real Book, Neil Young’s Before and After, NQ Arbuckle’s Love Songs for the Long Game, Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts, Paul Rodgers’s Midnight Rose, Peter Gabriel’s I/O, Robert Finley’s Black Bayou, Terra Lightfoot’s Healing Power and U.S. Girls’ Bless This Mess.
The superstar Swift did not release an album of new music, but on the Billboard 200 albums chart earlier this month she occupied half the top 10 herself. For her record-setting tour and concert film documenting it, for her news cycle ubiquity, for her empowering presence, for making Travis Kelce a household name and for her doggone conspicuousness, she was named Time’s Person of the Year.
As for songs, I found this year’s crop to be inferior to last year’s by far. Here are 10 that caught my attention, for good and bad:
Olivia Rodrigo performs during the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 12, at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.Charles Sykes/The Associated Press
Best pop: Olivia Rodrigo’s Vampire
A lilting, melodramatic ballad savages an unnamed person for their life-sucking tendencies. Smart stuff from the thinking pop fan’s Taylor Swift.
Best rock: Foo Fighters’ Rescued
Raging melodicism about being saved from peril, Rescued opens Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters’ cathartic first album since the 2022 death of drummer Taylor Hawkins.
Jason Aldean performs on Nov. 7, in Nashville, Tenn.Terry Wyatt/Getty Images
Most culturally divisive: Jason Aldean’s Try That in a Small Town
With his catchy but problematic song for angry people, bro-country hitmaker Jason Aldean seems to be advocating extralegal punishment for offences specifically committed in proudly American villages.
Best collaboration: Jenn Grant and Ria Mae’s One Hit Wonders
Slinky, satirical and reminiscent of a Spice Girls groove. Nova Scotia-based singer-songwriter Jenn Grant partnered with Ria Mae to slam the music industry’s treatment of female artists as replaceable.
Top streamer: Miley Cyrus’s Flowers
Miley Cyrus.Youtube/Handout
Lyrically and production-wise, this smooth-groove single is straight out of the 1970s. Pure female-pop empowerment.
Best R&B: SZA’s Kill Bill
“Uh, I just killed my ex; not the best idea/ Killed his girlfriend next; how’d I get here?” The trick of this track is the mellowness of SZA’s vocals, completely disconnected from the capital crime to which she is confessing.
Best rap: Drake’s Red Button
A month after announcing he would be taking a hiatus from making new music to focus on health issues, hip-hop king Drake released six songs he said he wrote in five days. Among them a trippy track that drops N-bombs and praises Taylor Swift and Larry David.
Most confusing: Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond
The red-bearded Southerner attempted to write a country-folk protest song in the Woody Guthrie tradition that was quickly interpreted by some as a right-wing anthem.
Most controversial cover: Luke Combs’s Fast Car
Country star Luke Combs crossed lanes when he made Tracey Chapman’s pop hit from 1988 a country hit in 2023. He also took some heat as a white man covering a song written by a queer Black woman – a demographic not historically welcome in the country genre.
Most newsworthy: The Beatles’ Now And Then
Nearly 60 years after Ed Sullivan first uttered the words “Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles,” the Fab Four is still at it (albeit half-posthumously). Studio wizardry brought an old demo tape back to life in the form of a lush, wistful ballad for the ages.
Brad Wheeler